Nocturne of Shadow
by cupcakemolotov
Summary: Mom, dead. Emotions, gone. She'd promised them, after all. Hate to break that. What's a little blood in a girl's lipstick? Their nightmares weren't her's, remember?
1. Chapter 1

I wrote this in response to the many, many posts on Tumblr today when I should have been working. I hope you enjoy it.

* * *

The club was packed.

Teeth grinding, Stefan Salvatore stared at the mass of bodies moving together, the scent of sweat and alcohol heavy in the air. Human pulses and the deep, loud thrum of the base hid the irregular heartbeats of the undead. He knew he wasn't the only vampire in this club, but the problem was the one he hunted was hidden just as effectively as everyone else.

A flicker of blonde at his peripheral was a taunt, and he raked his hands through his hair. Two weeks since they'd fucked up; two weeks since Caroline had used that particular brand of ruthless practicality that made her so damn smart against them, and disappeared.

"Do _not_ follow me, Stefan. I know where you've buried your secrets and you don't want to play this game with me. This is your last warning."

The cool, clipped tones of her voice had shaken him. Her sunshine sweetness might have occasionally been eclipsed by a particular brand of Caroline-bitchiness, but the Caroline on the phone had been a stranger. Damon had laughed off her threat, but Stefan knew she meant every word.

She'd staked him to the floor of her home, had taunted him with his fake lack of emotions, and snapped his neck.

"Stefan, Stefan - you think I didn't know?"

He blinked open bleary eyes and gasped around the stake in his lungs. Caroline was bent over him, lips painted blood red. She was smiling at him, but the coldness there made his gut hurt.

He tried to talk, and she pressed one finger to his lips. "_Shhh_. Don't talk, we both know you'll just lie to me anyway. You did a good job, with your little fake out, your impassioned plea to Elena. I liked that touch. _Very_ dramatic."

She pressed her knees alongside his hips, hand pressing the stake harder into his chest. "You broke your end of the deal."

"Caroline." He managed and her nails cut into his chest.

"Shut up. You don't have permission to talk." Caroline bared sudden fangs at him, eyes dark with anger. "I'm done, you understand? With you, with Elena, with this town. I made rules - I was following them. You only had to wait a year, but I'm not Elena, am I? What I want doesn't matter. Well, fuck _you_ Stefan Salvatore. It's my life, and for the next year, I'm going to live it how I want."

Sharp, dangerous teeth bent over his neck, and her breath brushed against his ear like knives. "No more rules, no more promises. Let's see how well the world bleeds, no?"

Then she'd snapped his neck.

It'd taken a tracking spell to find her; Caroline had completely covered her tracks.

This club made him uncomfortable. It was close enough to New Orleans to draw a large non-human crowd, but not so close that big players gathered near. But it was the blood that was pounding into his skull.

_Fake. Fake. Fake. _

A sudden hand clasped on his shoulder, spinning him around and Stefan felt the blood freeze in his veins. Klaus smiled at him, dimples cutting into his cheeks.

"Stefan, mate, you look like you've seen a ghost."

"What are doing here?" Stefan finally asked, eyes narrowing. "Why aren't you in New Orleans?"

Klaus smile turned sharp. "Ah yes. New Orleans. The rumor mill is a bit of a disappointment then, if you haven't heard. Let's get a drink."

"I'm not interested."

"I wasn't asking." Klaus said mildly. "You understand my curiosity when I'm passing through a few towns over, and I catch you looking particularly irritated. Who are you hunting, Stefan? Where's the rest of your friends?"

Stefan grimaced and turned to the bar. This was the last thing he wanted. An emotionless Caroline would be delighted to see Klaus and he wasn't sure he could take it. Watching her use Klaus as a weapon... but if anyone could help her, it might be him.

"What rumors?" Stefan asked once their drinks were served.

"New Orleans recently experienced... a culling." Klaus' eyes glinted, and the coldness there cut. "It's been accredited as the greatest loss of witches since the Witch Trials. Harder to fake death when your head is being ripped off."

"Why?" Stefan asked once he'd managed to swallow.

"Oh, you have your little gang to thank for that." Klaus nursed his whiskey. "Too much compassion, too many people who walked away spreading rumors that I was weak. Tyler's life expectancy is exceptionally short."

Stefan wanted to say Caroline wouldn't approve. But if he didn't find her, didn't force her back into grieving, in a year the Caroline he knew might very well be gone.

"Why are you here?" Klaus asked. He seemed generally interested, but Klaus was a master manipulator.

"Caroline flipped the switch."

Klaus went still - motionless in a way humans never could. Heart, lungs and blood - it remained unmoving as Klaus absorbed the impact of his words.

"Her mother."

Stefan nodded jaw working as he stared into his drink. "I've tracked her..."

"Caroline is here?" Klaus interrupted, face concerned.

"That's not why you are?" Stefan asked humorlessly. "You didn't have spies?"

Klaus arched a brow even as he turned, eyes scanning the mosh pit. "I'd hardly be talking to you if the was the case. What happened?"

"She wanted a year."

Klaus turned to face him, eyes narrowing. "Pardon?"

Stefan rubbed his face. "She asked us for a year, without emotions. As if that would help her cope."

"In the long run, maybe, maybe not." Klaus pushed himself up. "Seemed to do wonders for you mate."

"No it didn't." Stefan snapped. "And it's not like you can control an emotionless vampire, especially one as smart as her. A year could be a ploy."

"Is that why she asked?" Klaus questioned mildly. "To put you off her scent?

"She staked me to her kitchen floor," Stefan snapped. "Why else would she do that?"

Klaus shrugged, reached over and snapped Stefan's neck. Holding him up, he moved to a booth and shoved him inside. Smiling, he dusted his hands.

"A good question, mate. I'll be sure to ask her."

* * *

He found her leaving through a back exit. She walked over the broken concrete and gravel as if it was flat, impossible heels showing the shortness of the dress to advantage.

"Klaus."

Her lips were curved, but her _eyes_. Her eyes were wild, pupils blown from her blood high. She'd wiped her face clean, but had left her lipstick messy, the red smeared by blood. Klaus let himself drink her in, the crimson of her dress, the scent of blood on her skin and the wild curls in her hair. He'd sketch this later, the abandonment of her rules, the truth she'd hidden under her skin.

"Caroline, sweetheart, you look ravishing."

She tossed her hair, and his smile widened at the dark rust of blood caught in the ends. Messy eater, his girl. He wondered what this apathy and anger tasted like on her tongue.

"Did the Scooby-gang call you?" She drawled, lips twisted in a proxy of humor.

"Hardly love, although we both know you should've."

She rolled her eyes and turned on those heels of hers, sashaying across the low light of the parking lot. He followed, hands sliding into his pockets as he watched her move.

"Do we? Why? Are you going to help them? I saw you speaking to Stefan. Nice neck snap. I'll remember that wrist flick."

He grinned. "It's always the wrist sweetheart. Brute force is... so inelegant."

"Oh, I know." She dismissed him with a flicker of her fingertips. "So what did my newest paramour have to say for himself?"

_"Paramour?"_

"Oh, he'd like to be. Did you know that Stefan thinks he's my emotional trigger?" She glanced back at him and _that smile _he wanted against his bare skin. All wicked lies and her particular brand of calculation, just softened by deviousness. "That I'd turn my emotions back on if he pushed hard enough?"

"Does he? How exactly did he come about that particular conclusion?" Klaus didn't bother to hide the bite in his voice, the jealousy. Stefan was lucky that death hadn't been more permanent.

A shrug. A flicker of tongue against her lips, and her lashes hooded those eyes as she tasted blood. "I might have helped him along."

"Did you now?" He paced behind her, keeping within an easy distance. She smiled at that, but it was a sharp, dangerous thing. A weapon she wielded carelessly.

"My mom's dead." Her voice was flat, hard like the gravel beneath her feet. "My mom died and do you know what they did? It was about _Damon_."

She threw out her arms and his eyes traced the lines of her, lingering the smear of blood at her wrist, the tightness of her shoulders. The shape of her face in shadow.

"Mom. My mom. Mine." Her eyes were glittering. "But no - poor little Caroline, it's her mommy, but I loved her too. How can I understand that, what Damon lost? Fuck Damon._ Fuck all of them. _Do you know what Elena told me?"

How brittle she must have been standing with her friends, and watching them poor sympathy onto the man who raped her. Oh, hadn't dear Rebekah drooped that morsel into their conversations, taunting him - his promise to not return holding him rooted.

Impotent with rage and no outlet.

"Enlighten me."

"That she wouldn't let me make that choice." Her lips twisted into a sneer. "As if she'd the right. As if anyone cared when I objected to her, to Stephan being forced into it. But since they were shit people when they turned it off, then everyone must become their personal nightmares."

She arched her back, looking at the moon. "So I broke her neck."

"I'll hardly complain about that love," Klaus told her. "It's a pity the first time it happened, she'd vampire blood in her system."

Caroline laughed, spinning in a circle, palms lifted to the sky. "Elena hates it you know. Doesn't understand that being a vampire is..."

"Is what?" Klaus asked, watching her. The dips and plans as she moved through the moonlight. She paused and looked at him, curls settling around her face, a single strand of hair caught against the stain of her lips. Her smile was a feral thing, temptation in the curve of her mouth.

_"Freeing."_

He stepped closer, and she narrowed her eyes. He stopped, letting her study him. Oh, he might like that look - the lust, a predator recognizing another - but he'd wait. Caroline had never truly hidden her preference for vampirism. Still, Stefan was chasing her. Her friends were trying to force her to cling to humanity when she'd taken a blow to the heart she might not recover from, and all of it fit with what he knew of them.

But her?

"Why turn it off? Regardless of the distance Caroline, you'll grieve. And it'll hurt as much a year from now as it did yesterday."

Darkness filled her gaze, threaded below her eyes and she bared her fangs. He took three quick steps, pressed into her space and breathed her in. Carefully, slowly so that she could push him back, he ghosted his fingers along those black lines of malady.

Decided he'd trace more of her soon.

"Is this your choice, Caroline?"

She scoffed at him, but she didn't moved, didn't flinched as his knuckles grazed down her cheek. But she didn't put her teeth away, either.

"I told them I wanted a year." She said lowly, holding his gaze. The darkness swallowed his reflection, devoured everything she looked at. "No emotions, no caring, no worry. One year, and in return, I wouldn't kill anyone."

There was his missing piece.

That was the Caroline he knew. Devastated, grieving and lacking support... with Damon taking the spotlight, Stefan apparently making move to romance her through the funeral and Bonnie dead; his girl would make a choice. Better to turn it off and have rules, then be forced into it and do something she'd regret.

Of course the Mystic Falls fool would fight her on it. Of course they'd lack any understanding of what she was, what she wore under her skin.

She met his eyes, smiled. Black eyes, blacker veins and sharp, sharp fangs. But that smile - that was Caroline. "I warned them, you know."

He smiled in pure affection. "That was generous."

She reached out and caught his necklaces between her fingers, toyed with the beads. Flirted with her eyes, her lashes. "Hmmm. I can be generous. I told them that if they interfered, I'd become their worst nightmare."

He laughed, pleased with the deviousness in her gaze. "Is that why Stefan is hunting you?"

"Do you know how it eats at him, thinking I'll become a ripper? That I'll destroy what he thinks is good and pure, what he thinks he loves?" Her lips pulled away from her fangs in a sneer. "I'm not weak."

He twisted a blood-touched curl around his finger and smiled at her, dimples flashing deep. "Oh, sweetheart. Stefan is amusing, isn't he? All riled and frustrated, projecting his own failings on everyone. So easily tied into knots. Pity that the doppelgänger is just as weak - but you? Love, you're a queen."

She watched him under her lashes and the darkness slowly receded from her eyes. Blunt, human teeth caught her bottom lip before her tongue snaked out to wet it.

"Is this where you make your plea?" Caroline asked, false amusement touching her eyes. "Do I get to threaten you too?"

"I asked you once, if you'd make me the same deal you'd once offered someone else." Klaus said instead. He caught the hand in his necklaces, lifted her bloodied wrist to his mouth and licked away the stain. Her pupils went wide, lips parting slowly as she watched him.

"Make me an offer, Caroline."

She shuddered, breath pushing away from her lungs in a heave. "Your city - the baby, those fucking responsibilities?"

He bit her fingertips, blunt teethe scrapping over sensitive fingertips. "Razed to the ground. Burnt to ash. I don't allow liars to live."

Her head tilted and her eyes narrowed. "Haley?"

He laughed and kissed along her palm, lips pressing against what was once her pulse point. "Dead, as my preference. My kingdom at your feet, sweetheart. The world. Tell me what you need. Offer me what you've given others, Caroline."

She leaned forward with tiny, panting breaths hot against his lips. "A year. I want a year where I don't have to think, I don't have to breathe. Where I can be free."

His smile was a feral thing, but she didn't flinch. "What does free mean, Caroline?"

She touched his lips, fingertips lightly tracing skin until he shivered. "I made a list. So I'd remember and I wrote out the reasons; I might one day care about them."

"Oh?"

She sneered a little, lips curling away from her teeth. "I didn't want to kill anyone; what fun is apathy forever? I know that one day, I'll miss my mom. When that happens, I won't regret this. It might break me... When this is done I'll need something to cushion it - I don't want to break."

He kissed her, mouth skimming hers. Her lips parted with a greedy little noise that strained his control. Then she bit his lip with human teeth until he bleed and he shuddered, hands gripping her hair until she moaned.

Pulling back, he licked his lip and watched her chest heave.

"With me, sweetheart, there will be no regrets." He smoothed her hair and stepped back, hand extended. "Come with me."

She laced her fingers with his, face questioning. "Where?"

"First blood." He tugged her in the direction of his car. "Blood bags are required sweetheart, if you don't want to kill anyone. Then, you decide."

Her lips pressed against his ear, breath hot. "I can have whatever I want?"

"Anything." He told her, eyes shut as she sucked on his neck, just a little. _Anything at all_.

She pulled back, eyes glittering. "Klaus?"

She bit the corner of her lip, and that calculation that was such a turn on, it turned her smile wicked, and it caught at his chest.

"Let's go make some trouble."

He brought their joined hands to his lips, his smile a match for hers.

"I'd be delighted."

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**_Please comment._**


	2. Chapter 2

This was supposed to be a one-shot. It is probably going to have one more chapter now, perhaps two?

* * *

Dirty Martinis were delicious.

Licking away the last of vodka, vermouth and blood from her lip, she gave a slow, slow smile to the bartender who'd mixed her drink - as well as the girl who'd donated the blood while Caroline had watched. Hmm, B positive. Who knew there were vampire clubs that catered to vampires with specific blood preferences?

With live donors.

This particular club was in Brazil, run by a vampire acquaintance of Klaus'. Hidden, remote and filled with both vampires and donors, it did little to hide what it was once you were inside. It was the kind of place her previous friends would have hated.

It was the perfect place to blend in. Turning, she sauntered through the crowd, fingers pushing her loose hair away from her face. Humidity and dancing had already made her curls wild, and she took another slow slip from her drink, savoring the rush.

"Enjoying yourself love?"

Caroline glanced at the hybrid leaning against another bar, his smile only for her. For three months he'd catered to her whims, taking her wherever she wanted. Letting her do whatever she wished within the perimeters she'd given.

Klaus didn't push, didn't judge, didn't try to hold her back. He let her be. Oh, he was never more than a few feet away, always prepared to change their plans at the flip of a coin. But outside of her previous request to avoid killing - to avoid the eventual regrets she might one day have, gotta plan for that - he let her explore.

And wasn't that just a delicious power rush.

Knowing that the most powerful being - the second oldest living - was allowing her to lead, letting her make the decisions? It left her a touch breathless. She couldn't get even get her so called friends to respect her decisions, but less let her lead.

Like this club. They'd walked in and he'd simply compelled his friend into silence. Then, he'd gone through the room, oozing charm and danger, using the same complesions. Ignore them. Do whatever she wanted. Forget they were ever there.

"Of course," she smiled at him and sauntered over. That smile of his widened as she pressed into his space. Her fingers slipped to his neckline, brushing that warm, fever hot skin of his. His hands moved to her hips, his face telling her he didn't mind her close. But she knew that already.

"I want to dance."

Her fingers gripped his shirt, and she tugged him with her while she turned. His laugh was a soft rumble of noise, the heat of him a blaze at her back. She didn't bother letting go once they were in the middle of the floor, instead she she turned and laced her fingers behind his neck.

There was that look, the one that heated her in all the right places. Part devotion, part indulgence, all want. She couldn't remember any of her other boyfriends or lovers looking at her like that. Lust, yes. Affection, sure. But none of them had ever adored her.

She liked it.

"So, do ancient hybrids know how to dance?" She gave him a wicked smile, pressing close. "Or should I just show you?"

His hands slid along her back, one tangling in her hair as he matched the beat of her body, eyes dark. "Sweetheart, you're hardly the first generation to indulge in such a primal form of expression."

Letting that little flicker of his lashes, the parting of his lips be her guide, she gripped his necklaces to keep him close. "It's fun."

"I prefer my fucking naked." His smile was sharp, but he never took his hands from her body. "This is hardly what I'd call dancing."

She rolled her body into his, nails scrapping his neck. "This is better."

Another noise of amusement. "Is it? I don't need music or crowds to move with you like this."

"Don't be a snob tonight, Klaus." She warned, eyes narrowing. "And maybe this is the only way I'm going to let you touch me."

He bent his head and kissed her neck, scrapping his human teeth just below her ear. She shivered, pressing closer despite herself. His hand on her ass kept their bodies anchored together as he ghosted his mouth along her ear.

"To be able to hold, but not touch. To use eyes and lips to whisper of want... that's real dancing, sweetheart."

She tilted her head back, taunting him with the line of her throat. "You seem pretty worked up to me."

He took her dare, bit a line of sucking kisses to her jaw. "That's just you."

Caroline watched him from under her lashes. He was playing with her tonight, not bothering to mask his want. Part of that was the compulsion he'd used on everyone in the building, the rest of it was her.

The sharp, hot bite of arousal sharpened her smile. "Is this the part where you say no sex? Tell me I don't know what I want?"

He laughed low, tilting his head to smile at her with such affection, close enough that his lips skimmed hers with every word. "Oh, sweetheart. The mistake that you and everyone else seems to make is thinking that by flipping the switch, you're no longer you."

Caroline arched both brows. "Seriously?"

That smile, sharp and delighted, aroused with just the faintest touch of danger. She touched it with her fingertips, wondered if he smiled like that in bed. He hadn't in the woods, but that had been to much, as fast as possible. Maybe this smile was for languid hours under the sheets.

"Turning off your emotions doesn't make you less 'Caroline,' love. It's just one of the many truths you've kept under your skin." His eyes flickered over her lips, then back to her eyes. "You've always been a predator."

"Stefan doesn't agree." She countered, waiting to see his response. They'd slowed, until their bodies were just brushing each other, Klaus loosening his hold.

Klaus made a dismissive noise. "That's because Stefan can't accept one of his fundamental truths: blood. His dislike has nothing to do with control, little to do with with his personal horror, although I'll concede that his guilt is amusing if misplaced."

"Oh?" She was curious, despite herself. Stefan had once been the best Vampire she knew. Now, she'd second thought 'best.'

"We're vampires, sweetheart; monsters in the dark. Blood is life. Those like Stefan, with that little extra itch, they want the world to bleed its offerings like old gods. They reflect the more primal heart of our natures. Stefan's shame isn't that he is a ripper, but that he cannot accept it."

He stroked his hands along her back. "Now you... your reasons for not killing might be logical instead of emotional, but it's also not your nature to be a blunt instrument. You must admit, Caroline, that Stefan is hardly subtle; unfortunately, he still doesn't understand the differences between the two you."

"Killing indiscriminately is boring," Caroline said with a sigh, watching him from beneath her lashes as they swayed. "It's not any fun if they aren't worked up about it."

"So I've heard." He touched her chin, eyes bright. "You would play with your food."

"Why not?" Caroline asked with a shrug. "Where's the entertainment if they just die?"

"Vicious little predator," he murmured. Hand sliding back to her ass, he pressed her flush against him, rolling their hips together. She moaned into his ear, nails cutting into his neck.

"I'm not prey, love," he warned as he rocked into her, body moving to the slow steady beat. "Remember that."

She bit his ear, licked the blood until it healed, smiled at the way his lean body shuddered. "You'd be no fun if you were."

"As for sex..." Klaus murmured. "Only if that logical brain says you won't regret it."

She pulled back, frowned at him. "What?"

"I'll play with you, hunt with you, but I won't fuck you, Caroline." His eyes were dark.

"What if I want to fuck you?" She asked.

His mouth flickered with a smile, but he caught her gaze, held it. "No regrets. Not with me, Caroline. I won't be used and discarded, another of your trophies. I won't let you use me to hurt yourself later, either."

"Is that so?"

He gripped her hair between her knuckles, tugged her neck back to suck on her skin. She gripped his shoulders, body pushing against his as marked her skin.

"I stripped you bare in the forest, watched you come with leaves in your hair, my name on your lips and dirt on you knees. Spread you open like a pagan offering, the forest our broken alter." Klaus told her, voice tough with arousal. "When I take you to bed, it'll be with silk and blood; your body a feast in which I'll indulge for hours. But it'll be all of you, sweetheart. Not just the darkness, not just the monster - I want the woman who eats the people who annoy her, manipulates her friends for good and ill, and who cries over baby rabbits."

"So certain I'll turn it back on." Her skin felt too tight, to exposed. So she verbally put as much distance between them as his hold would allow. "Planning on using compulsion if I refuse?"

"I don't have to use compulsion," he chided, refusing to let her move away entirely. "You've already said it yourself. You're not weak."

"You see my remaining like this - free - as weak?" She tossed her hair, expression remote.

Klaus tucked a curl behind her ear, his touch more proprietary than gentle. "Of course not. But you do."

She went still against him.

"You know what your emotional trigger is sweetheart. You're to smart to not have figured that out. I'll bet that you made a list." His breath was hot on her ear as he leaned into her. "You're so called friends are the worst kind of fools."

Caroline watched him, eyes dark with her monster. "You think you know me better, that you understand me?"

Klaus laughed, pulling her sharply against him. Hand curving against her jaw, he held her still as he deliberately dragged his gaze along her face. "In seven months, you'll give up this little vacation, and struggle through the grief."

She bared her fangs at him. He bit her lip with blunt teeth until she bled, tongue hot against the burn. She clung to his shoulders as he took, tongue hot and slick against hers; the unexpected taste of blood made her shudder as he licked at her fangs.

When he pulled back, his lips were smeared with them, eyes tinged yellow. She couldn't look away, ignoring that knowing, wicked smile.

"But until then, why would I limit you? Spread your wings, little vampire, and let's see how you bring down your prey."

She slid one hand up his shoulder, leaned into him as the beat changed, thrumming through both of them. Eyes locked with his, she pressed against the lines of him and savored it - the heat of him, the faint bite of his cologne, every hard line of him. The way his body moved with hers and that faint, slight hitch in lungs that didn't need air.

Catching the corner of her lip in her teeth, tasting blood, she let her lips curl, lashes heavy as she gazed up at him.

"Let's."

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